Communications of the ACM
An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM News
Controversial Quantum Computer Aces Entanglement Tests
A few days ago, I held a quantum computer in my hand—or did I?
From ACM News
The Father of All Men Is 340,000 Years Old
Albert Perry carried a secret in his DNA: a Y chromosome so distinctive that it reveals new information about the origin of our species.
From ACM TechNews
Ford's Open-Source Kit Brings Era of Smart Car Apps
Ford Motor Co. recently released OpenXC, an open source hardware and software toolkit that will allow the hacker community to experiment with the computer systems...
From ACM News
Kinect Sensor Poised to Leap Into Everyday Life
When Microsoft's Kinect gaming sensor first exploded onto the gaming scene in 2010, it wasn't long before people started getting excited about what it might make...
From ACM News
Mapping Malware's Genome to Fight Future Attacks
Every year a computer worm emerges to stalk the Internet, each one seemingly bigger and badder than the last (see diagram).
From ACM News
Silent Skype Calls Can Hide Secret Messages
Got a secret message to send? Say it with silence.
From ACM News
Warning, Speedsters: You Can't Fool Quantum Radar
Is it a bird, a plane, or a speeding car?
From ACM Opinion
'biology Is a Manufacturing Capability'
Soon we'll be able to engineer living things with mechanical precision, says Tom Knight, father of synthetic biology.
From ACM News
Brain-Like Chip Outstrips Normal Computers
Computer chips that mimic the human brain are outstripping conventional chips in crucial ways. They could also revolutionise our understanding of how the brain...
From ACM News
Will We Ever nderstand How Our Brains Work?
When it comes to the human brain, many scientists believe that we are incapable of understanding how it works because we lack the tools and intelligence to measure...
From ACM News
Ping-Pong Robot Learns to Play Like a Person
A robot that learns to play ping-pong from humans and improves as it competes against them could be the best robotic table-tennis challenger the world has seen.
From ACM News
Robots Get Around By Mimicking Primates
Give a friend directions, such as, "it's across the street from a petrol station, just after a red brick building on the right..." and you can be pretty sure they'll...
From ACM Opinion
Patent Could Shackle 3D Printers with Drm
One of the greatest benefits of 3D printing technology—the ability to make replacements or parts for household objects like toys, utensils and gadgets—may be denied...
From ACM News
Graphics Chips Are For More Than Just Eye Candy
Chances are there is a graphics chip in your desktop computer, and it is fuelling a revolution.
From ACM News
The Real Tron: It Security As a Shoot 'em p
Alert to a sudden threat, you race down a virtual corridor of servers, hot on the tail of malicious software.
From ACM News
Mimicry Beats Consciousness in Gaming's Turing Test
The Turing test might still be too hard for software to crack—but two programs have already aced video gaming's answer to this famous evaluation of machine intelligence...
From ACM News
Cameras Know You By Your Walk
Everyone knows how easy it is to recognize a friend or family member from their walk—even from a distance.
From ACM News
Wired Is the New Wireless: Spreading the Web in China
It's not easy to give over 1.3 billion people access to the internet—especially if that population is spread across a vast area that ranges from hinterland to sprawling...
From ACM TechNews
Fbi Launches $1 Billion Face Recognition Project
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is using facial-recognition technology to identify criminals and the system will be rolled out nationwide by 2014.
From ACM News